Over the years, puzzles have been played and enjoyed by millions. One of the chief enjoyments of puzzles is seeing a complete picture come to fruition by recognizing and correctly placing puzzle pieces that have only a small segment of the entire puzzle picture thereon. It is generally recognized, however, that one of the severe drawbacks to many puzzles is the inability of some, particularly young children, to correctly recognize the proper locations for the numerous puzzle pieces. One of the ways of attempting to overcome this drawback is to provide a puzzle with fewer puzzle pieces that are considerably larger in size. By so doing, the puzzle is easier to assemble, even for children of young age.
Nevertheless, when difficulty of the puzzle is reduced, the puzzle is able to hold the attention of a child for less time. After the puzzle has been measured, the child can usually repeat assembly of the puzzle very quickly and without much challenge, and the puzzle soon becomes discarded. Moreover, with simple puzzles, the parent is far less likely, due to the simple nature of the exercise, to engage in valuable playtime with the child.
Of course, it is also well recognized that young children find card games to be enjoyable. In fact, most children enjoy the mere act of playing with ordinary playing cards, quite apart from the many specialized card games specifically directed at young children. In this regard, specialized card games are usually conceived with the specific object of inviting parent participation.
Unfortunately, many specialized card games are sufficiently junevile to actually discourage parent participation. In other cases, primarily involving the use of skill rather than chance, the child can easily become discouraged or the parent must occasionally let the child win, due to the superior skills of the parent. In either case, frustration of both the parent and the child is the unfortunate result.
Generally speaking, many games have been proposed over the years. Such games have ranged the gambit from the most simple to extremely complex, but most games have had numerous and diverse small pieces that can be harmful to young children if improperly handled and can easily become lost or misplaced. Additionally, such games are usually discarded after a relatively short time.
Among the various attempts to provide puzzles, cards and games are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,586,714; 4,050,698; 3,937,472; 3,759,526; 2,383,081; 1,617,772; 1,558,229; 1,217,632; 819,915; 239,879; and 171,507. Nevertheless, it has remained to provide a card game puzzle that successfully overcomes the above stated problems and completely accomplishes the stated objects by enhancing parent-child participation.